Living the long fight
by expletive deleted
Summary: Gamzee and Dave find the things between them hard to let go of; a black romance runs one of its possible natural courses.


Inspired by the art "no other motherfucker", found here: hso-r2 (dot) livejournal (dot) com / 6380 (dot) html. This ficlet was first posted for a bonus round in the Homestuck Shipping Olympics 2011.

* * *

Used to be a kid

a kid who kind of destroyed the world.

He went and did it like it was no thing. But it wasn't that hard to do back then, though, considering how worlds were coming to nothing all about the time-space place; Sand and Zephyr, Pulse and Haze, Tents and Mirth. Even a world that had been made up of sea and sand and hive and moons and more, solid enough to have lived on for six whole sweeps, got pounded to dust.

That motherfucker did his destruction personalised, though.

He went and made all meaning null in a brain hazed with chemicals and rising nightmares-and after that, every single thing meant too much to take. Bad, bad fucking time. It did finish up, though - it got worked out as best as it could. There were still rainbows on the walls and dead white eyes that shouldn't really have been made to see all of what they had. And the _seriously fucking funny_thing: it all got started by accident.

It got explained the first time they came to for real face each other - down a corridor that was dark and mostly quiet. That kid still had extra chub in his cheeks. No wonder that he hardly ever bothered to do so little as smile - made it way too easy to tell he was just a kid. Pretty scrawny too, for all the size of that one particular broke-ass sword he swung around. And he was still not scared. He just said hi. Turned out to be easy to talk to.

With all the history of it explained between them, the kid said sorry and he laid it down real nice, even slid rhymes in there that had to be appreciated, and he did not understood enough to mean a word of it. Accident, he said. Repeatedly.

What really got into the blood, into the bile, was that he knew he couldn't really understand, but didn't at all care to try and be capable of it.

It really was meant friendly-like, and Gamzee had taken him by the shoulders. Then by the throat. Kid had blinked extra, probably, it was a little hard to tell behind those glasses, and then said something _real_funny. Shit, a guy like that didn't deserve to die.

Gamzee tightened his grip only very briefly, though very hard. Dave Strider deserved to live with this.

- o -

Used to be a man.

Motherfucker smoothed into growing, like humans apparently went and did. No moulting and whatnot - just filling out, stretching up, getting all scratchy around the mouth area. Strange to see, but easy to appreciate. Especially with how strong he got, and more disinclined to flash-step around and out of the fights he picked with all those little bits of teasing.

Maybe it had to do with being back on a world like the one he best remembered; steadier in his own territory. More ready to stand ground. Put his back _right_to the wall. And there was that much more satisfaction to his rarer terrors and how he couldn't quit fighting back harder, and the angles of his heavier jaw, the sharper scent to his sweat.

Humans weren't made for this kind of relationship, Rose said. Shared blood and all, she was nowhere near so set on keeping a straight fucking face as Dave. She worried sometimes, and sure as merry hell she wasn't too scared of Gamzee to make her point about it. Humans couldn't and shouldn't hate for so long; got the psychology broken up and all. She was cool, but there were enough trolls around to confirm it really wasn't any of her motherfucking business.

Dave might have told her the same. It might not be that he wanted Gamzee to live with this, to hold out the blackest part of his heart; but at times he'd had his hands around Gamzee's throat with conviction that it seemed to physically pain him to straight-up show in any part of life. He refused to lose. Took things personally. Beautifully stupid about it all. And so they had each other just like that.

- o -

Used to be a sad sack of bones

that really should have known what miserable shit he was agglomerated of. Instead he went about and said how he was going to fuck off up some mountain, grow a beard to shock all Egberts and their shaving cream obsession unto the seventh generation, "pull ninja sage shit for all who wandered up the holy path".

Holy! The motherfucker never would stop throwing shit like that around. _Decades_, and he didn't stop! Gamzee stalked around his easy chair, unable to touch papery skin in case the whole of him broke before Gamzee had finished yelling, and he'd laugh. It should have been revolting to see him made weak but he only ever got less scared, more convinced of himself. Said he was stepping up to face death - why be scared of some clown fuck who'd never managed to get him there?

Once, staring off out the window, he'd told Gamzee again that he was stepping up to death - and why be scared of that when he'd been doing it near-daily since he was a kid, and two little hands had closed round his neck?

_He still couldn't look him in the eye for that._

Then Dave laughed and looked over to watch him baring every fang at his disposal, and laughed harder. Knew exactly what buttons he was pushing. He only ever got better at that.

For a brittle bone sack he had a lot of sinewed strength to spare. Sometimes Gamzee would hold out a hand for him to leave a bruise on, old time's sake.

- o -

Someday there would be

well, who the fuck knew. Whatever worlds there would be and whatever they might throw at you, you had to roll with it. Someday there might be someone else to live the long fight with.

Never like him.


End file.
